Sports & Recreation
Mobile residents love a good game of baseball. The mobile Baybears is the official minor league team for what is known in the circuit as the “City of Azaleas”
The annual, multi-sport Alabama Sports Festival was first started in 1982. Organizers developed an Olympic style arena for athletes of all ages to compete in a multitude of styles and levels. The first Festival competition took place in 1983, when 200 athletes competed in only four sports events.
The popularity of the Sports Festival grew by leaps and bounds. By 2005, there were more than 8,000 athletes competing in 20 different sports events. The Sports Festival offers more than just entertainment for young people of Mobile; it offers a challenge to stay active. Although the festival was originally created to introduce a fun alternative to one-event only sports, it now serves as a way to help young people make positive and healthy choices.
Furthermore, the festival stresses the importance of community, merit and family involvement. In 1993, the Alabama Sports Festival introduced a Scholarship program that, to date, has granted two hundred eighty one college scholarships to students who otherwise would not have a chance to go to college. The total cost of the program is one hundred seventy six thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. The most amazing detail of the whole festival is that is completely volunteer driven.
FAST FACTS:
City Population: 198,915
Metropolitan Surrounding Area: 399,843 miles
State Nickname: The Yellow Hammer State
Size: 159.4 square miles
Median Household Income: $33,689.00
Average Annual Rainfall: 13.7 inches
Average Annual Snowfall: 0.4 inches
Average Temperature in January: 44.9 degrees
Average Temperature in July: 82 degrees